Hi, At the beginning of the trading hours I submitted a sell MOC order for 126 shares of AMLN with IB/TWS. At 4pm my order is Cancelled... Every day I submit MOC order and sometimes, like for AMLN today, the MOC order is cancelled!!! Is there a problem with IB/TWS or SMART or MOC order or... If someone could explain me the problem, I'll appreciate. thanks
They have bugs with their MOC order. Within 10 minutes of the close, it cannot be canceled. I have a buy-stop with attached sell-stop and MOC. Usually, I swing till market close and end the day flat. 1. Once I has using about 3x Buying Power but I had all my MOC orders in so I wouldn't have anything overnight. Their program sold some of my shares the last 10 minutes to bring me to 2x BP. Then when my MOC executed, it put me short in some positions. They were F**ked up to sell my position when it was already going to be sold at market close and I couldn't cancel the MOC. 2. Another time, one of my stocks dropped in the last 10 minutes of the day and got stopped out. Usually once the stop triggers, the MOC order is canceled. But it was in the last 10 minutes (MOC can't get canceled) so I got stopped out and then the MOC made me short my full position at the close. 3. Yesterday, I was long GOOG with a stop-loss at low of day and sell MOC. It dropped through my stop the last 10 mins. so I thought I would be short with the MOC. I decided to buy x shares so the MOC would make me flat. the MOC NEVER executed and i ended yesterday long GOOG. I have no idea why the MOC works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. The 3 examples from above cost me about $1000 total.
Thanks for your reply. So, I'm not alone ;-) Are you working with IB? I'd like to know if this problem exist with all brokers?
I did call in and talk with support. Their solution was to use the GAT order. and set the time to 3:59 instead of a MOC. I thought it was sorta lame because I used the close price of day for backtesting. I think I'm going to start swing trading longer timeframes that do not require MOC.
Of course, you're right. MKT at 3:59:00 or MOC will not make a difference after, say, 100 orders. But, perhaps, there is an explaination of the fact that sometimes (about 5% of my MOC order) a MOC order is cancelled instead of being filled at 4PM ET. All my MOC order are submitted close to 10 AM (so, not before opening trading hours and not within the last 15min )... If it's a bug with IB or TWS, I'd like to know it. In the same way, if it's a problem with the Nasdaq...
Sanjuro: IB is working on fixing the problem where u get liquidated just before the close then your MOC orders get executed and you end up with unwanted overnight positions without being able to cancel the MOC http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54450&perpage=6&pagenumber=56 Fredcom: As for MOC orders not being filled, ive never had that problem, but ive always placed them around 3:30pm. When exactly was your MOC order cancelled during the day, you can at least ask IB for that info and see what they tell you. Placing a MOC order between 9:30am and 3:50pm is acceptable according to NASDAQ. Sanjuro: MOC orders cannot be cancelled after 3:50pm due to NASDAQ requirements, not due to IB so thats applicable to any MOC order in the market placed by any broker. If you are afraid of getting stopped out due to late market action and then having the MOC execute, my advice would be to delay placing your MOC order until just before 3:50pm (which is also the last time you are allowed to place a MOC order). So at 3:49:00, if the stock is near to your stop loss, dont place a MOC and exit manually with a regular market order just before the close, and if you think its unlikely your stop will get hit, then place the MOC as usual. Using a GAT order instead is a silly proprosition. IB needs to fix the problem mentioned in the link above instead of suggesting other order types be used. Sanjuro and fredcom: Did IB ever tell you why your MOC order was cancelled and when exactly it was cancelled. That could give us an idea of why its happening..u need to ask them why order was cancelled and when
I find MOC orders profitable on certain stocks on a daily basis if the entry criterias are met. If you backtest a stock and find that it usually closes within 10-15% of the high of the day on an up day, then I would trade MOC for that stock for the exit.
That's nice to hear they are fixing that first problem. That's a good question, I should've asked IB to check on that order while I was talking to them. I just assumed that the MOC was canceled because my stop was filled in the last 10 minutes. But that doesn't make sense because it couldn't have canceled in the last 10 minutes.
Maybe you can still ask them to look at what happened that day to your MOC order (ie when exactly and why it was cancelled). Note: there is one case i know of in which a MOC order will not be filled, and that is if it is going to be executed more than 10% away from the market price just before the close..so if market is trading at say, $100.00 at 3:59:59 and your sell MOC order would be filled at $87 due to a very large number of sell MOC orders having been submitted and very few buy MOC orders in the closing cross, in that case, your MOC order will not be filled because the large imbalance would cause a >10% deviation between the closing price and the market price just before the close..this is a rare circumstance where a MOC order will not be filled, according to a NASDAQ rep i spoke to recently, but it probably was not the case for you.